Tribe Nine hears the reapers call as Akatsuki Games announces closure

It seems that Akatsuki Games has been studying at the feet of Square Enix, as they have announced the closure of their RPG Tribe Nine just three months into its life. This comes one month after they dropped a pretty substantial roadmap about where the game was heading, and weirdly, it didn’t mention the bin.

This announcement has seemingly come out of absolutely nowhere, and rather frustratingly, they haven’t offered any reason for it. We are merely told that the teams have “strived to provide excellent service”, but after “careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to end the game’s service."

What makes it even more jarring is that the servers will stay active until November 27th, 2025. Six months away. Tribe Nine's death rattle will last literally twice as long as its lifespan. And for what? The developers have confirmed that everything that was planned, including work that is presumably either finished or near completion, won’t be released.

Chapter four? Gone. The two unreleased characters, Ichinosuke Akiba and Saizo Akiba, who were scheduled to drop in May or June? We won’t be seeing them even though they are surely in a playable state at this point. I have never developed a game, but I doubt you leave the bulk of a character's data until the month of release. Even fixes to known issues won’t be carried out.

Despite the bad taste this abrupt burning has left, at least they have confirmed their refund policy. Anyone who used Paid Enigma Entities to unlock Armed Support, Advanced Support, or the Support Contract - Revenio to unlock Akiba’s skin will be refunded. You also can’t purchase Engima Entities or Daily Passes anymore. But other than that, Tribe Nine is at the end of the road.

If you want to give it a whirl before time runs out, you can pick up Tribe Nine from the App Store or Google Play.